It's not hard for me to find Sakyin's shack. I know where to look—the shadier side of Yed Prior space station, where anything goes. I've heard people refer to it as the "interstellar black market," but I'm not sure I would categorize it that way myself.

The area is dim and sparsely occupied. The stalls are close together, and the street is narrow, giving even me a distinct sense of claustrophobia. There's a faint scent of rotting meat, likely due to the fact that no one seems to clean anything down here. A couple people eye me. I keep walking. The entire place is far too quiet.

Sakyin's shack is squished between two others. One is a stall selling opioids. The owner is passed out in a chair behind the counter. I'm not sure what the other is—all the signs are blacked out, and the door is boarded up. Ominous. Compared to what's on either side, Sakyin's place is hardly noticeable. It's small and plain, constructed out of an odd combination of metal, plastic, and synthetic wood. There are no signs, except for one bearing the word "CLOSED," hand-scrawled in a messy Aludran script.

I knock on the door. She has to be here.

"I'm closed!" barks a hoarse voice from inside. The accent is typical of Aludran vernacular.

"Sorry," I respond in Aludran. I'm not sure what else to say. "I was just wondering if I could talk to you."

"Nope," retorts Sakyin. "Absolutely not. Did you see the sign?"

"I did. When are you going to be open?"

"Whenever I feel like it."

I almost laugh. Typical Sakyin. "Sorry, but I'm a little pressed for time at the moment. I'm not exactly supposed to be here—"

She chuckles. The sound is grating. "No one's really supposed to be here, are they?"

"I just—I just want to hear your opinion on something. I doubt it'll take long."

Pause. "It'll cost you."

I sigh. "How much?"

"Fifty credits."

"That's absurd."

"Hey, that's what you get for disturbing me when I'm closed."

"I'll give you twenty," I say, knowing full well that she isn't going to settle for that.

"Hmm." There's another pause, and I hear the noise of something shifting around inside the shack. "Depends who you are and what you want you hear about. My favorite color? I'll tell you that for free. Classified Tarazoid military info? That's gonna be a lot more than fifty credits, my friend. Information traders have standards."

"Okay. Fair."

"So? Who are you?"

"I'm... a chronicler." It's not the most fitting word, but it's better than journalist.

"A chronicler," she repeats.

"Yeah. I'm collecting stories."

"About what?"

I pause for a second, then say quietly, "Parse."

"Parse? The AI?" There's noticeable alarm in Sakyin's voice, and I hear more papers and furniture shifting around.

"Yeah. I know you've met them."

"They're a client of mine." There's a low whirring sound, and the door opens just a crack. "Come in."

I hurry into the hut, making sure to shut the door behind me. The room is very small, and the lights are dim. It smells musty, like old paper. But my eyes immediately fall on the objects that are strewn about the room, taking up space on the tables and shelves. Papers, books, pieces of technology—Sakyin has it all. And Sakyin herself is sitting on a stool in the middle of it all, scrutinizing me. She's short, and unmistakably Aludran, with scaly tentacles springing out of her shoulders and head, and green-and-orange blotched skin. She's also significantly older and more worn than many people I've seen. I note a couple scars on her skin, including one long green one that runs down the side of her face.

"You're not Aludran," is the first thing she says. Her voice seems even more scratchy when I can hear it clearly.

"I'm not," I agree. "Aludrans don't have purple skin."

She eyes me. "What species are you?"

"Alrescha."

"Interesting." She leans forward slightly. "So. You want me to tell you about Parse."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Why?"

"I told you; I'm collecting stories."

"Stories about Parse."

"Yeah. I'm just interested in getting different opinions on them. That kind of stuff. You know?"

"And then what?"

"What do you mean?"

"What are you going to do with these stories? Publish them? Sell them? Give them to some sketchy organization on the fringes of the galaxy?"

"I'm just going to show them to a friend of mine. He's interested in Parse too. But that's it. I swear." I reach into my bag, pulling out a tablet and showing Sakyin a document. "Here's what I have all my interviewees sign."

Sakyin takes the tablet. The room is completely silent while she reads the document. Finally, she hands the device back to me. "You're on thin ice, my friend. Parse likes their privacy."

"I understand."

"And this is definitely going to cost you."

I swallow. "Okay."

"So. What do you want to know?"

I take out my recorder and click it on. "If it's alright with you... I'd like to know how you first met Parse."

*

How I first met Parse! That was years ago! About a hundred, maybe? Longer? Can't say how long ago exactly, but we Aludrans do live for a pretty long time.

Ah, that's right—that was when I was doing weapons trading on Sadr. Sadr! Can you believe it? But that was the best place for it, given how non-aligned the Sadr are. Anyway, I was doing remarkably well.

But then one day, this random Menkalinan shows up out of nowhere, asking for me.

Picture the scene. A community of about 500 traders, most of them Aludran, Hamalian, or Tarazoid. And of course we had quite a few Sadr. It was surprisingly peaceful, given how many of us dealt in weaponry. And apart from some miscommunications between the Sadr and the rest of us, there wasn't a lot of drama. Then, one day, my assistant dragged in this absolute wreck of a person.

They looked like they were about to die. Hell, they looked like they'd been to the blankest voids of the underworld and come back again. They were tall, thin, Menkalinan. Their hair was matted and they smelled like shit. Dark green blood was smeared across their clothing, and scars were visible on their skin from newly healed wounds. And another strange thing? They were a cyborg. And not a very good one. Little bits of metal dotted their body, and they had a large, unsightly implant on their forehead.

My assistant, a Sadr, had a tight grip on their shoulders. With his two free arms, he signed, "I found them rushing around the complex. They said they were looking for you."

I inspected the Menkalinan. They stared up at me, expression impossible to read.

"Let them go," I signed back to my assistant.

"Are you sure? They could be dangerous."

"I'll be the judge of that."

He obliged, letting go of the Menkalinan leaving the room as well. The two of us scrutinized each other.

"You're Sakyin Gederi?" they finally asked, in Aludran.

That surprised me—outside Aludra, the language wasn't spoken all that much. But I responded in the same. "I am. What do you want?"

"Your help."

"I'm not a medic," I said, gesturing to their injuries.

"I don't need one. I need a new body."

"You—what?" That was definitely not something I'd heard before. "Why can't we just, like, fix up the one you have?"

"Not an option. I've tried. It's dying anyway."

I decided to just roll with it. "Right. What kind of body do you need?"

"A dead one."

"You want me to kill someone, or—?"

"Preferably not."

I slowly lowered myself into the chair next to me, all the while keeping my eyes on the Menkalinan. They stayed standing.

"What makes you think," I began after a second, "that you can just switch out your body with a new one?"

They shut their eyes tightly, as if not wishing to recall the answer. "I'm an AI. I've... done it before."

"An AI," I repeated. "Interesting."

They said nothing.

The Menkalinan stayed with me over the next couple days, borrowing the room of one of my neighbors in the complex. I didn't bug them anymore. They didn't seem like they wanted to be bombarded with questions. I did call up a couple of my associates, though, to see if I could procure any dead bodies.

"What's your name?" I asked my guest one day. Their condition was visibly worsening, and were mostly confined to the couch or the bed.

"My creators named me Parse."

"Parse? Like the word?"

"Yeah. It means 'to take apart and analyze'—"

"I know, I know. It's just an interesting name." I paused, watching them closely. "Why did they create you? You're very... realistic."

"Just to see what I could do, I guess."

"That's it?"

"Well, they wanted to create an AI that was almost indistinguishable from a living being."

"Looks like they succeeded."

"Not really," said Parse, and didn't elaborate.

A minute passed. "We could upload you into a robotic body," I suggested.

"No." Their response was quick and firm.

"No?"

"No."

"Okay then."

Another day passed. I have to admit, I'd grown used to Parse. They were very... interesting. And for whatever reason, I was inclined to help them. You see, I wasn't so strict about my services back then. Now? Well, you've seen. Takes a good amount of bribery to get even a story out of me. I found Parse a new body for free. I'd never do that today—even if they were still as fascinating to me now as they were then.

"We found a body," I told Parse later.

They sat up. "You did?"

"Yeah. It's a Sadr. In relatively good shape, as far as bodies go."

"That's fantastic!" Parse grinned widely. "When can we get started?"

"Hang on just a moment. Do you know how to speak Sadr?"

"That's what translators are for—do I need to?"

I almost laughed. "If you're gonna be in the body of one, absolutely."

"How come?"

I frowned. "You've seen the Sadr around the complex, right? We're on their planet. You know who they are."

"I have, but—it's only been a couple weeks since I left my home planet. I don't know that much about the diversity of species in this galaxy. And I've been... preoccupied."

Well, that explained it, I guess. "The Sadr are the grey-skinned ones with hair, four arms, and one eye. Following me?"

"Yeah?"

"They can't speak. They have no ears or vocal cords. They communicate using a very complicated sign language that I've been using for years, but I'm still not fluent. If you want to be a Sadr, you're gonna have to speak Sadr."

"Oh!" Parse didn't look all that concerned. "Well, I could just upload the grammar and vocabulary into my brain, right? That's what I did for Aludran."

Now that I thought about it, it seemed obvious. I grinned. "Well, that's certainly one way of doing it."

Soon enough, the body arrived, and Parse was ready. I helped them borrow a laboratory, in which they shut themself up for a full day. I'm not exactly sure how they did it, but they went in as a Menkalinan and came out as a Sadr.

And then they just left. They said a quick goodbye—in perfectly grammatically correct Sadr, I should add—and went off on their journey elsewhere.

*

"Where'd they go?" I ask.

Sakyin shrugs. "Who knows. I never know."

"But they came back."

"They did. A year later, in the body of an Acamar. And again they asked me for a favor. And so it went. I don't know how many times they've visited me. A lot, that's for sure. Sometimes they need new tech, or information. Sometimes I get them to help me with stuff. But our relationship has really grown since then."

I nod along. "It seems like you're one of the only people they trust."

She laughs. "Yeah, you could say that."

"How did they know how to find you, that first time?"

"I have a reputation," is her cryptic answer. "All sorts of people come and find me. But never anyone like Parse."

There's a pause. Sakyin has finished. I stand, bowing my head in gratitude.

"Thank you for your story," I tell her.

"No problem, my friend. I have to say, it was quite fun to tell it."

"I'm glad." I start fishing around in my pockets for some credits. "How much?"

Sakyin grins at me. "Thirty. Just for you. Don't be expecting anything that cheap next time."

I hand her the money. "Of course not. Your story was invaluable."